Passing through the covered bazaar of the Lahore Gate, the visitor
entered a well-kept square about 200 feet long and 140 feet broad, surrounded
by a range of arcade departments where, in olden days, the Omrahs had their
quarters when on the King's guard. On the south-western corner of the square
stood certain public buildings where the Emperor's Nazir transacted business.
In the centre of the square was a tank, fed by a canal which divided the
square into two equal parts; on either side of the canal was a wide road-way
which followed the course of the canal from north to south: going northward
to the royal gardens and southward to the Delhi Gate. In front of the tank
and opposite the inner entrance of the Lahore Gate bazaar, within an enclosure
of stone railing, stood the Nakar Khahah, or the Music Hall, a two-storeyed
red-stone building, which, notwithstanding the alterations it has undergone
to meet the exigencies of a military garrison, continues much the same
as it was.

Neither the walls of this square, the tank, the public buildings,
nor the stone railings of the Nakar Khanah are now in existence. Between
the entrance of the bazaar and the Nakar Khanah the ground has been cleared
and levelled, and there is nothing to mark the site of the buildings which
once formed the right and left wings of the Music Hall of Shah Jahan. Five
times a day the Royal band used to strike up in this lofty Hall; on Sundays
the music was kept up almost the whole day, "because it was a day sacred
to the sun"; and the same honour was paid to the day of the week on which
the King was born. Bernier, who was "stunned" by the noise and found it
unbearable at first, at last grew accustomed to "the royal music" and discovered
grandeur, solemnity, and even melody in it.